Operation: Minesweeper
by Secretmegajerk
Summary: An army division tasked with exploring and securing the ruins of aliens after the war


It's been three months since the Cursonians attacked, we won but, why does it still feel like we could get nuked any second?

The streets run red, with the air reeks of smoke and radiation, their bases scattered across the continent. some of the scientists think that there might be valuable information and technology inside them, if it wasn't for those damned mines we could be living in andromeda by now, that's why we-

"Hey, rookie!" Shouted the sergeant, snapping Daniel out of his thoughts. "Quit sitting all creepy like over there and get over here!"

Daniel hastily stood up and ran towards the chief warrant officer, Sapphire Hill, nearly falling as he stopped.

"Yes, ma'am!" Shouted daniel.

The chief walked up to him slowly until she spoke:

"Identification."

"Name: Daniel Sheeper, ID number: 17242194, Operation: Minesweeper, ma'am!"

"Listen here Daniel, I know this operation needs more brain than brawn but if one of those... _things_ pop up and you can't defend yourself." she walks even closer towards Daniel and stares him right in the eyes as she spoke: "you're dead, you got that?"

Daniel tries to muster up a response to her statement but before he could say a word, "I SAID, YOU GOT THAT?" Daniel stumbles, shocked by her shouts

"Yes, ma'am!" he replies.

"Good, now get in there soldier!" Daniel immediately turns around and follows the other jogging soldiers, as soon as he left another sergeant walks up behind Sapphire and says to her,

"you think he'll survive?"

"Well, he passed the physical and mental exam with albeit OK results but, he's got spirit. He can handle it," she says to him.

"I give him until next week," he replies.

Later that afternoon in the cafeteria. Daniel picks up his tray and nearly vomits as he smells the greenish yellow-tinted blob masquerading as mashed potato and the glass of pulp with two drops of orange juice in it, he sits down at a table near the cafeteria's entrance with two other soldiers who conversing with each other and began poking at his meal with his fork, contemplating whether or not to do a drill while starving or die of food poisoning, he decided to choose the latter, but, before he placed the food in his mouth, another soldier at his table who was sitting across from him says to him.

"Hey, you're Daniel right?"

"Uh yeah, how do you know that?" He asked him,

"Your nametag," He points towards the crocheted words on his uniform spelling out his name,

"Oh yeah, duh," Daniel chuckled, "And I'm guessing you're," Daniel looks at his nametag spelling out:_ Dick Corduroy,_ "Dick, Dick Corduroy, like the fabric," he exclaims,

"Yeah, my parents are sewers, as in like, they sew clothes and bags, I joined the army to help get food on the table,"

Daniel turns and reads the name of the man sitting next to him, _Alex Darbell_, "Nice to meet you, Alex!" Daniel held out his hand, Alex looks up from his meal and looks at Daniel's hand before he shook it.

"Pleasure to meet you." Said Alex with his mouth stuffed with mashed potatoes,

"So," says Dick, "I saw sergeant screaming at you earlier, what was that about?"

"Oh, nothing, I just had my head in the clouds and she gave me a talk about how if I'm not taking it seriously, those alien douches might kill me."

"Well she's right, I've seen them, man, they're creepy, also I'm surprised you only got talked to, last time I had _my _head in the clouds I got a slap and did two hundred pushups,"

"Man, she sounds harsh,"

"Yeah, we sometimes call her _fire mountain, _because of her name, sa_pphire hill._"

"Oh, fire hill, fire mountain, that's clever,"

Alex looks up from his meal once more. "Technically I came up with that so," Said Alex, before going back to eating his food.

"So, are you guys ready for, you know, the ruins," Daniel asks the two of them,

"Well, of course, It's our job, also didn't you volunteer?" Dick asks back,

"I guess but, I wanted to do this because, well, I've just always wanted to _do_ something Impactful, I was always just... _there_, I didn't really like that so, I volunteered, but now that I'm here It finally dawns on me that I might actually..." Daniel pauses.

"Die?" Asked dick.

"Yeah,"

"So you volunteered because you were bored?"

"Well, when you put it that way,"

"It makes you sound like a douchebag, it does, but I can respect that if you chose to serve your country because you were bored, that must mean that for you, it's fun or at the very least interesting to help people and I can respect that, most people would watch a movie, or read a book, but you decided to be a hero, and you did pass the physical so, what's the worst that could happen right?"

Daniel ponders Dick's words, "Thanks man, I needed that," Daniel says to him,

"Oh, get a room you two," Alex jokingly says with a cheeky grin, the three of them share a hearty laugh as they continue eating their food,

"Oh yeah, I wanted to ask, have you been in the training room yet?" Dick asked him, Daniel responds

"Training room?"

"ALRIGHT SOLDIERS," Shouts Sapphire at Daniel and other lined up soldiers inside of a white room with steel-lined walls,

"What's behind me is a controlled smaller scale version of the ruins, there are real mines inside, they aren't lethal but they do hurt, so don't be stupid," Sapphire exclaims while pacing in front of them, "Before you go in, I'll show you how to do it," Says Sapphire as she picks up one of many staffs on the wall and a puts on a pair of black goggles and enters the dark training room with a two-way mirror, she walks towards the center of the room, as the lights turn on, she screams towards the soldiers through the mirror. "When you get to the ruins, you're gonna have one of these," She holds up a white arrow-shaped object with a black outline and a half-sphere at one of the ends, she places the arrow on one of the blue crystal tiles of the training room's floor, half-sphere side down. "This is a cursor stick, you're gonna put the flat side on the floor, and press this button." Sapphire presses a button on the tip of the arrow and as she does so the tiles began to open up in a sort of ripple effect revealing the solid concrete beneath them. "As you can see, the tiles will open up, and these goggles show you how many mines are around an area," She walks towards a lone tile, surrounded by ones. "But since this is training, you can still see them regardless, like here, for example, this tile only has ones around it, so there's only one tile with a mine, and since there's only one tile, it's the one with a mine in it, so, you're gonna put the cursor stick on the tile, but, instead, you're gonna hold the button," She holds the button until smoke emerges from the bottom of the cursor stick. she picks it up, revealing an image of a flag on the tile, "Now this tile is marked, you want to be careful when marking and opening tiles, they rigged the mines in the ruins so that if one goes off, all of them do, even the marked ones, killing everyone, and destroying every piece of information there may have been," She then walks back towards the entrance and exits the room before taking off her goggles hang the cursor stick back on the wall and presses a button on the wall which resets the room and turning off its lights, "Now," She says before turning around and face the soldiers before speaking once more, "Who wants to go first?" One by one the soldiers enter the room, some successfully clearing the tiles, some not so much, until, "Next up, Daniel!" She screams, Daniel walks out of the line and steps forward, picking up a cursor stick and walks towards the training room's entrance, "Good luck," Sapphire says to him, before opening the door, Daniel walks towards the center of the room, as the lights turn on, he puts the cursor stick on a tile and press the button as the sergeant instructed,

_Alright, Daniel, you got this,_ he thinks to himself before pressing the button, opening a rectangularly shaped area, he notices that there's a three with three other tiles around it, and so he walks towards it and marks all three tiles, _Alright, so far so good,_ Daniel consistently marks and opens tiles, when suddenly, Daniel comes across two tiles, both of which may contain a tile, _So there are two threes around these tiles, and since there are already two marked tiles around them, one of these has a mine, but which one? _Daniel thinks to himself, _Well I could open the other tiles first, but even if I do, I'll still have to do this one eventually, so, _In the end, Daniel decides to open one of the tiles in front of him and hopefully not blow up, he, unfortunately, opens a mine-filled tile which explodes, sending him backward and as the other mines explode, he unsuccessfully attempts to escape the explosions, he eventually decides to wait it out and crawls into a fetal position, covering his face and mouth from the smoke, after all of the mines, have detonated, he leaves the room, his shirt now stained from the smoke and ash inside the room,

"That's alright soldier," Sapphire says to him sympathetically, "Now back in line," Daniel walks back into the line, while wiping off the soot on his uniform.

_fuck_

he thinks to himself as another soldier enters the training room.

Author's note: Hi there! beginner writer here, how'd I do? good? bad? just okay? critique welcome.


End file.
